Consumer Reports No Longer Recommends the Tesla Model 3 (cnn.com)

Consumer Reports is pulling its recommendation of the Tesla Model 3, citing reliability issues with the car. "Tesla buyers are more likely to be satisfied with their car than customers of any other brand, according to Consumer Reports," reports CNN. "Yet the publication says many customers reported problems with the Model 3, including loose body trim and glass defects." From the report: "Consumers expect their cars to last -- and not be in the repair shop. That's why reliability is so important," said Jake Fisher, senior director of automotive testing at Consumer Reports. Tesla pointed to its overall customer satisfaction rating from Consumer Reports and said it has corrected many of the problems found in the survey. "We take feedback from our customers very seriously and quickly implement improvements any time we hear about issues," said the company statement. It said the survey was conducted from July through September, "so the vast majority of these issues have already been corrected through design and manufacturing improvements, and we are already seeing a significant improvement in our field data." Last May, the product testing website failed to give the Model 3 a recommendation due to issues with braking, but ultimately reversed its decision after Tesla released a firmware update improving the car's breaking distance by nearly 20 feet.

Comments

Manufacturing Is Hard

[labnet]

I design and have engineers and programmers develop for me and mass manufacturing reliable systems is really hard. The 80:20 rule means there will always be an issue you don't pick up in pilot runs. The other car manufacturers have had decades refining designs and production systems. I'm actually surprised Tesla have had few problems as they have had.
but.. providing they survive, they will learn just like all the other car companies have, and fix their quality issues... it's a balancing act between capital expenditure (in tooling, engineering, prototyping, testing) and profitability.

Consumer Report Gods

[maxrate]

I have a Model 3 - picked it up June 2018. I'm in Canada, only thing wrong with the car is cold battery issue and had some issues with the charging port freezing. Brought it into Telsa, they fixed it in 2 hours. Wife drives almost exactly 100 miles daily, we are saving a LOT in fuel. I believe our electrical bill at the house has gone up by about $100 a month vs the $500+ in fuel we were spending on her previous ride. The car steering is tight, accelerates amazingly, refreshing interior, a pleasure to drive. Definitely worth the minor (very minor) trouble we have experienced with it. Already 18,000 miles on the car, feels the same since day one. Can't say the same about my Chevy Tahoe. 2016, 38,000 miles stupid issues all over the place. Cold battery a big deal? No it does not affect my wifes 100 mile commute. When cold, doesn't accelerate as quickly (still plenty better than most cars) and takes longer to charge. I score the car an easy 9 outta 10. Thinking about a model X now too.

Re:1.0 Problems

[Rei]

To people who didn't know better, they'd think that you actually have a Model 3. You don't - you're a consistent Tesla foe on this forum. You're just repeating FUD that you heard.

Going down the list:

1) There were two cases (out of hundreds of thousands of cars) of the bumper coming off. It wasn't due to being "in the rain", but rather driving quickly through standing water (the bumper was acting like a parachute, and Model 3 has crazy amounts of torque). These cases were half a year ago. No new cases have been reported since.

2) According to the Model 3 Owners Survey, conducted last August (when autowipers were brand new; they've gotten better since then), the ratings for autowipers were:

57,0%: They do their job just fine
25,5%: Very rarely don't wipe, or wipe too often - but it's not a problem
9,7%: Minor issues that probably should be fixed.
7,8%: Moderate to major issues

These are similar numbers to what you'd find for a review of any autowiper system - and this was the very first release.

3) You can make the water go into the trunk by applying RainX to your rear windshield, which makes the water slide off faster and over the rear gutter. But there is a rear gutter (it was enlarged last year regardless).

4) According to the Model 3 Owners Survey (again, last August, involving a lot of early vehicles) 76,5% were "very satisfied" with their exterior fit and finish, and 16,9% "mostly satisfied" (93,4% total). For interior fit and finish, the numbers were 80,2% and 17,0%, respectively (97,2%). Infotainment system satisfaction ("the screen") were 58,2% and 31,3%, respectively (89,5%). These are exceedingly high numbers.

And these exceedingly high numbers show. Since we're talking about Consumer Reports, wouldn't it be great if they had polled what people thought of their cars? Why, they did! And of all of the different models from all of the different manufacturers, Model 3 owners loved their cars the most. 92% satisfaction. Specifically, the question they were asked about was whether, after having owned the car, they would make the same purchase decision again. So IMHO it's rather odd for Consumer Reports to recommend against a car that their own survey found brought their owners the most joy, and ALSO got the lowest VSS (combined probability of injury score) in NHTSA history.

I do have two issues with CR's methodology, which I'll mention here.,

1) They're giving the impression that we're talking about recent Model 3s here. This is not true. This data was collected on Model 3s from early last year to the middle of last year. These are early-run vehicles that they're talking about. For example, they mentioned the "phantom click" issue. That only existed on some vehicles delivered from February to April 2018 in the 4000-15000 VIN range, due to a bad batch of displays from a supplier. The problem has not existed at all in any form for nearly a year. Yet it's something that CR cites. Note how low those VINs are; Tesla's VINs are now nearly 300k.

2) Specifically because of all of the anti-Tesla FUD, most Model 3 buyers went over their vehicles with a fine-toothed comb, in a way that buyers of other vehicles do not. There were even long "checklists" circulating around that many people used to make sure that their vehicles were flawless at delivery. Who does that for any other vehicle? Now, there's nothing wrong at all with doing this - diligence is great when buying a car. But it messes with self-reporting surveys like CR's. The more a person searches for any little issue

Re:1.0 Problems

[Rei]

Also, for serious EV news that apparently has flown entirely under the radar for most people today...

Der Zellkonflikt mit den Zulieferern

Short summary: VW wants to emulate Tesla and build Gigafactories (in conjunction with SK Innovation, which would be playing the role that Panasonic does with Tesla). However, they're being held hostage by their current supplier (LG), who is threatening to cut off all battery shipments to them (immediately) unless they drop their Gigafactory plans. VW is trying to find a way out of this mess, as they see the Gigafactory approach as being essential to ensuring a sufficient supply of cells at a low enough price to meet their target price points and be competitive.